A variety of species across the animal kingdom can reproduce both sexually and asexually, including some types of starfish, water fleas, hammerhead sharks and Komodo dragons.
Articles on Sexual reproduction
Displaying 1 - 20 of 37 articles
Does size matter? In the animal kingdom, yes.
Spanning evolutionary biology, genetics, development, neurobiology, endocrinology and psychology, as well as current events and sports, students explore the complexities of the biology of sex.
After a chance discovery in the lab, this team used IVF to make hundreds of coral babies for restoration projects in New South Wales. So far the IVF babies are doing well in the wild.
Climate change and the nuclear threat are raising concerns about our planet’s future ability to support human life. If we launch a species survival mission, who should go?
Few animals have babies without sex, so biologists assumed asexual reproduction must have evolutionary drawbacks. But a self-cloning Australian grasshopper shows things might be more complicated.
Researchers were surprised to find two female condors had managed to hatch chicks that had no fathers. But virgin birth does not seem to produce healthy birds that could strengthen the population.
Disasters highlight the cost of society’s love of efficiency. Nature, in contrast, favors resilience. Being more like nature offers benefits for society, especially in the face of the climate crisis.
Parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which an egg develops into an embryo without being fertilized by sperm, might be more common than you realized.
Sexual reproduction helps keep coral colonies diverse and resilient. Now, scientists are doing it in a lab to restock flagging reefs.
Scientists don’t just want to unravel the mysteries of slug sex for voyeurism.
Sexual organs similar to what we see in sharks and rays today appeared many millions of years ago in much more primitive ancient fishes than was previously thought.
The competition to father young is often most intense behind the scenes.
By exploiting the way yeast cells mate, researchers have figured out a quicker, easier way to identify on- and off-target drug interactions.
What if the menopause was something we thought positively about or were able to discuss openly without fear of derision?
Women often say their periods begin at the same time as their friends’.
Rotifers are tiny creatures found in ponds or puddles and can reproduce without sex. The theory says they should not have survived so how have they done it?
A set of twins in Vietnam have been found to have different fathers.
Evolution also does not claim humans evolved from primates. Neither does it say non-human primates, including monkeys, baboons, chimpanzees and gorillas, will evolve into humans with time.
The fossilized plant Montsechia relied on water to disseminate its genetic material and may rewrite the book on when and how the first flowering plants evolved.
Top contributors
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Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University
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Jenny Graves is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University
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Emeritus Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Professor of Avian Behavioural Ecology, Macquarie University
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Reader / Associate Professor in Reproductive Science, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Professor of Animal Evolution & Systematics, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Protozoology, University of Bristol
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Senior Lecturer in Genetics, Adelaide University
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Group leader, male reproductive health, University of Edinburgh
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Emeritus Professor of Geological Sciences and Paleobotany, Indiana University
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PhD, Evolutionary Biology, Nantes Université
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Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
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Sexual health researcher, The University of Melbourne
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Postdoctoral Fellow in Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin
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Research Fellow in Medical Anthropology, University of Bristol